JAMES THE SECOND.

45

In this Declaration the King avowed that it was his earnestwish to see his people members of that Church to which hehimself belonged. But, since that could not be, he an-nounced his intention to protect them in the free exercise oftheir religion. He repeated all those phrases which, eightyears before, when he was himself an oppressed man, hadbeen familiar to his lips, but which he had ceased to use fromthe day on which a turn of fortune had put it into his power tobe an oppressor. He had long been convinced, he said, thatconscience was not to be forced, that persecution was un-favourable to population and to trade, and that it never at-tained the ends which persecutors had in view. He repeatedhis promise, already often repeated and often violated, thathe would protect the Established Church in the enjoyment ofher legal rights. He then proceeded to annul, by his ownsole authority, a long series of statutes. He suspended allpenal laws against all classes of Nonconformists. He autho-rised both Roman Catholics and Protestant Dissenters to per-form their worship publicly. He forbade his subjects, onpain of his highest displeasure, to molest any religious as-sembly. He also abrogated all those acts which imposed anyreligious test as a qualification for any civil or military office.*That the Declaration of Indulgence was unconstitutionalis a point on which both the great English parties have alwaysbeen entirely agreed. Every person capable of reasoning ona political question must perceive that a monarch who is com-petent to issue such a declaration is nothing less than an ab-solute monarch. Nor is it possible to urge in defence of thisact of James those pleas by which many arbitrary acts of theStuarts have been vindicated or excused. It cannot be saidthat he mistook the bounds of his prerogative because theyhad not been accurately ascertained. For the truth is that hetrespassed with a recent landmark full in his view. Fifteenyears before that time, a Declaration of Indulgence had beenput forth by his brother with the advice of the Cabal. ThatDeclaration, when compared with the Declaration of James,might be called modest and cautious. The Declaration of4 London Gazelle, April 7.16S7.

CHAP.

vn.

1637 .